The Judgement card: A new awakening. A wake up call. Rising up. Rebirth.

You can examine the Judgement card in the context of this past Memorial Day – a holiday to honor those who have fought and or died in American wars. Look at those coffins opening up on the Judgement card as remembering the dead, the Angel’s trumpet as the soldier’s bugle revelry. Why, the red cross on the Angel’s flag even looks like the Red Cross!

I can’t reconcile my feelings about war or soldiers. My Vietnam vet stepfather waged a private subversive war on our family. My city crumbled on September 11th and pregnant with my daughter, I watched the invasion of Bagdad from the same couch from which I’d seen the towers fall. None of it made any logical sense. The only thing I knew for sure was that it was all wrong.

I’ve yet to explain to my daughter why we would stand at a parade and cheer for those who kill for us. I am grateful to our armed forces but don’t condone what we ask them to do. I want protection but without bloodshed and violence. Possible?

We celebrated Memorial weekend like many other Americans – ignoring moral dilemmas. We cooked, ate and played. Sunday night was a garden dinner party, fire pit roaring, fireflies flickering and tikki torches illuminating the dreamy nightscape. We are very, very fortunate and I know this.

You can look at the bodies rising up on Judgement card as flowers and summer lushness rising up like gangbusters to usher in the sun. We can also wrangle those coffins open with a crowbar, for ourselves, and peek at what crawls out.

What happens when the coffins open and we’ve awoken something we don’t understand? What if we don’t recognize ourselves after we’ve been reborn? When the angel sounds his horn with a strange siren song and we can’t rectify our past? Our former self? What if, like a soldier returning home, you can’t express what you’ve seen? What if you can’t bear to tell your mother what you’ve done? There’s no turning back after the Judgement card.

Memorial Day, like many holidays, marks a passage of time. Summer has unofficially arrived and like the Judgement card, something feels different.

The Judgement Tarot card is operating in you right now whether you realize it or not. In the coming summer months, you’ll grow, evolve and adapt. You’ll slather sun block at the beach, eat pickles at a picnic, bask in the sun, blast your favorite music and enjoy extra hours of golden sunlight.

And when those coffins creak open, perhaps, you’ll let a little more light in . . .

The Knight of Wands is so ferociously delicious, so wildly elusive. Why do we yearn for what we can’t have? If someone runs, why are we compelled to chase or worse, lie down and let them run/walk/stomp all over us?

It is helpful to look at the Court Cards as people you know – makes them so much easier to grasp . . .

The Knight of Wands will pin you under the stairwell after school, plant hot wet kisses on your mouth or take you into an empty classroom and slide his hands under your green Catholic uniform while you pray a nun doesn’t walk in to discover you both.

The Knight of Wands brings another girl to his formal, asks you for a slow dance, and presses his body so close to yours that you can feel every jocular muscle under his cheap, rented polyester tuxedo. Meanwhile, his date, pouts across the room, pretending not to notice.

The Knight of Wands plays sports, shows up at every party and laughs from his spot in Prom court because Wands love to be the center of attention.

The Knight of Wands tussles with you in cornfields, sneaks into your sleepover parties and unexpectedly shows up looking drop dead gorgeous. He shares warm beer, cold whiskey and fast rides in his Daddy’s caddy.

The Knight of Wands repays your love and devotion by systematically seducing each and every one of your girlfriends in the same exact way.

The Knight of Wands is a most dangerous aphrodisiac. You see, the Knight of Wands is always moving, never to be depended upon – is the essence of unpredictable Fire. When he has you in locked his sights, or in his arms your mind spins out of control, you lose yourself and become a quivering mass of flesh and blood.

The Knight of Wands can be the worst thing for a person who has an underdeveloped sense of who they are and what they deserve out of a relationship.

Perhaps, the Knight of Wands holds a valuable lesson to all those who date him?

But when I think back to my years in high school, and while I do not condone or advocate such behavior, I think the Knight of Wands can be like a snuck cigarette, shoplifted lip-gloss or stolen kiss.